The number of apparatuses of all kinds, for example domestic appliances, with an integrated microprocessor is rising rapidly and far exceeds the number of workstations, personal computers and high-performance computers.
Therefore, it is desirable for every day apparatuses such as sensors (for example the water level sensor of hydroponics), control electronics (for example for a heating system), domestic appliances (for example washing machines) or automotive electronics (for example for controlling electric window winding mechanisms) to be coupled in a wirefree manner to an external control device such as a laptop or a mobile radio telephone in order to enable a central control. For this purpose, two types of devices are often interlinked with one another. One type of device is the external control device, that is to say a computer system with sufficiently high computing power and sufficiently large memory space in order to be able to control other devices (such an external control device may be for example a personal computer, a laptop, a personal digital assistant or a sufficiently powerful mobile radio telephone). Devices of this type may also be referred to as “mobile terminal”. The other type of device is a transceiver (“smart transceiver”) with limited computing power and memory space, which can be integrated in a terminal (for example in a temperature sensor, a washing machine or an automobile).
Very different requirements made of transmission speed, security and driving have to be fulfilled depending on the respective application to be controlled. In other words, in accordance with the prior art, it is necessary to specifically coordinate the control device and the transceiver with one another, in particular to install an application control software on the control device and to ensure the capability for communication between control device and transceiver. In this respect, a problem that frequently occurs consists in the compatibility between the external control device, on the one hand, and the transceiver, on the other hand.
For the physical layer, in accordance with a communication layer model in accordance with which the wirefree communication between the external control device and the transceiver is effected, standards have been defined and are in use, such as, for example, Bluetooth, IEEE802.11x, RKE, etc.
At the level of an application to be controlled, i.e. in accordance with the application layer, it is generally presupposed that both apparatuses, that is to say the external control device and the transceiver, are provided with a specific communication and control software—coordinated with one another—for the respective partner. This presupposes that the external control device, on the one hand, and the transceiver, on the other hand, are coordinated with one another in detail prior to start-up. This requires a high outlay and results in a low flexibility. In order to be able to control an application associated with the transceiver using the external control device, it is often necessary in accordance with the prior art, prior to the first start-up, to store the associated application control program in a memory device of the external control device in order, in the case where the application is executed as required, to be able to process the application control program within the external control device and to be able to communicate corresponding control signals to the transceiver unit for controlling the application. Therefore, a high memory requirement is needed by the external control device, and, in the case where a multiplicity of different applications are controlled as required, the external control device may encounter its capacity limits.
Furthermore, prior to the first instance of controlling an application associated with a transceiver, the transceiver and the external control device have to be coordinated with one another in order to create the preconditions for a later control of an application. This is complex and difficult and often has to be carried out by a person skilled in the art.
DE 100 42 753 A1 describes a PC-based vacuum cleaner robot that receives control instructions via a radio link from a PC program stored in a PC.
DE 695 20 661 T2 describes a television receiver and also a remote control device by means of which the television receiver is remotely controlled. The remote control device transmits to the television receiver an identity code assigned to the remote control device and keys or algorithms for use as security codes in subsequent procedures.